Comedy Economics

Includes a new introduction written and read by Irvine Welsh When Chef Anthony Bourdain wrote "Don't Eat Before You Read This" in The New Yorker, he spared no one's appetite, revealing what goes on behind the kitchen door. In Kitchen Confidential, he expanded the appetizer into a deliciously...

PORTAL MAINTENANCE: FER SAL This is the 2nd Edition with I hope all the issues cleared up. Thank You Look, if you are looking for a serious, grimdark fantasy about a "Chosen One" fulfilling an ancient prophecy, I am not your author. But if you need a good laugh, interdimensional tax evasion, and weaponized 1970s upholstery? Pull up a chair. My name is Joseph. I'm a bankrupt systems engineer who bought a falling-down estate in rural Alabama for forty-four grand, entirely because the phenomenally misspelled "Fer Sal" sign in the front yard spoke to my soul. Turns out, the previous owners ...

In this sharp, funny and empowering guide, journalist Chris Kohler takes you through the rigged carnival of modern life, where the games are broken, the prizes are fake and somehow you're paying $28 to park near the entrance. From loyalty schemes to late fees, gift cards to sneaky supermarkets...

As a co-founder of The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, Chris Hillman is arguably the primary architect of what’s come to be known as country rock. He went on to record and perform in various configurations, including as a member of Stephen Stills’s Manassas and as a co-founder of The...

"This is a damn marriage manual disguised as a comedy special. A Trojan Swiffer, if you will." —Lenard "Charlamagne Tha God" McKelvey From veteran comedian, husband, and "great dad" Jordan Carlos comes a hilarious and helpful account of what it really takes, as a straight man, to keep your...

LORD OF THE EASTERN HEMISPHERE OF THE UNIVERSE Your Current Involuntary Election Campaign — PARODY BREAKING CAMPAIGN ANNOUNCEMENT. Congratulations. You have been selected to participate in the upcoming election for Lord of the Eastern Hemisphere of the Universe. Before anyone starts asking difficult questions — yes, we are aware that nobody is entirely certain which half of the universe is technically eastern. Astronomers are divided. Physicists have become strangely unavailable. Several galaxies have retained legal counsel. After considerable deliberation the Department of Speculative ...

Big personalities, high drama—the extraordinary behind-the-scenes story of the Food Network, now about to celebrate its twentieth anniversary: the business, media, and cultural juggernaut that changed the way America thinks about food. In October 1993, a tiny start-up called the Food Network...

The demon is a mob, and the mob is demonic. The Democratic Party activates mobs, depends on mobs, coddles mobs, publicizes and celebrates mobs—it is the mob. Sweeping in its scope and relentless in its argument, Demonic explains the peculiarities of liberals as standard groupthink behavior. To...

Executives from The Second City—the world’s premier comedy theater and school of improvisation—reveal improvisational techniques that can help any organization develop innovators, encourage adaptable leaders, and build transformational businesses. For more than fifty years, The Second City...

"A wild success." — Publishers Weekly "A surefire hit." —Library Journal STARRED review "A brilliant star turn." —Andrew O’Hagan A riotous and revealing story of Hollywood’s most spectacular flops and how they ended careers, bankrupted studios and changed film history. "Failure...

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the landmark book Freakonomics comes this curated collection from the most readable economics blog in the universe. It’s the perfect solution for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics. Surprising and erudite, eloquent and witty, When...

It used to be pretty easy to distinguish between the bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian counterculture. The bourgeois worked for corporations, wore gray, and went to church. The bohemians were artists and intellectuals. Bohemians championed the values of the liberated 1960s; the...

A mob boss in therapy. An experimental, violent prison unit. The death of an American city, as seen through a complex police investigation. A lawless frontier town trying to talk its way into the United States. A corrupt cop who rules his precinct like a warlord. The survivors of a plane crash...

Sampath Chawla was born in a time of drought that ended with a vengeance the night of his birth. All signs being auspicious, the villagers triumphantly assured Sampath's proud parents that their son was destined for greatness. Twenty years of failure later, that unfortunately does not appear to...

Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, ER, Cheers, Law & Order, Will & Grace…Here is the funny, splashy, irresistible insiders’ account of the greatest era in television history -- told by the actors, writers, directors, producers, and the network executives who made it happen…and watched it all fall...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST From the acclaimed author of Netherland (a New York Times Book Review Best Book of the year): the odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African soccer prodigy who might change their fortunes...

The riotously funny second novel by the New York Times bestselling author of Everyone Here Is Lying, Shari Lapena, that explores what happens when art collides with commerce. Will Thorne is a stalled poet, married to Judy, a wildly successful celebrity economist. Pressured by a starving fellow...

In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry. Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and...

In this deliciously noir novel from the creator of HBO's Bored to Death, idiosyncratic private detective Happy Doll embarks on a quest to help a dying friend in a sun-blinded Los Angeles as "quirky, edgy, charming, funny and serious" as its protagonist (Lee Child). Happy Doll is a charming, if...

Are men afraid of smart, successful women? Why did feminism fizzle? Why are so many of today's women freezing their faces and emotions in an orgy of plasticity? Is "having it all" just a cruel hoax? In this witty and wide-ranging book, Maureen Dowd looks at the state of the sexual union, raising...